By Kim Sengupta

The first unauthorised flight from Britain to Iraq since the Gulf
War arrived in Baghdad yesterday in defiance of the British
and American Governments, plunging the issue of UN
sanctions into confusion.
The secretly organised flight is the first successful journey
from either Britain or America, the two countries most
opposed to easing sanctions against Saddam Hussein's
regime.

The organisers, including George Galloway, a Labour MP,
claimed a victory last night after the Foreign Office in London,
which has always maintained that such missions were illegal,
appeared to concede that the flight exploited a loophole in the
regulations.

This is an embarrassing development for Washington and
London, which have repeatedly clashed with the three other
permanent members of the UN Security Council – Russia,
France and China – over allowing flights to Iraq. Peter Hain,
the Foreign Office minister responsible for the Middle East,
this week described the French position that the UN sanctions
did not include an air embargo as "contemptible".

The flight, which took off from Manston airport in Kent
ostensibly heading for a "religious conference" in Bulgaria,
was backed by the Bulgarian government. Three other
countries, Greece, Cyprus and Syria, also accepted the
over-flying of their territory. The plane passed – undetected –
through the "no fly" zone to land in Baghdad.

Mr Galloway said: "The sanctions are morally wrong and have
led to appalling misery and death among the Iraqi people. We
have always said that they did not cover civilian flights and the
British Government will now be humiliatingly forced to accept
that."

Mr Hain had blocked previous attempts by Mr Galloway and
the Mariam Appeal to organise humanitarian flights to Iraq.
They did not seek permission for yesterday's flight from either
the British Government or the United Nations. The only
religious facet to the journey was the presence on board of a
Catholic priest, Fr Noel Barry, a former press officer to
Cardinal Thomas Winning and a columnist with the Catholic
Times.

But it was Fr Barry who became the centre of the drama when,
while the flight was being refuelled at the Bulgarian resort of
Plovdiv, a call came through from London indicating that the
US was aware of the real destination of the plane. FrBarry, the
Americans claimed, was carrying cholesterol and angina
medicine, both possibly prohibited. The bemused priest
said he merely had his prescription tablets to counter
kidney-stone formation.

Another sign that the British and US position on sanctions is
weakening came in Baghdad. The city, meant to be isolated by
embargoes, is hosting a trade fair with 45 countries, including
France, Germany, Belgium, China and Russia, represented.

The Iraqi Vice-President, Taha Yassin Ramadan, said: "The
embargo has started fizzling out, God willing, with all excuses
for keeping it in place falling away."
Iraq is pumping 2.3 million barrels of oil a day and has
granted lucrative contracts to France, China and Russia.
Baghdad has also insisted that it wants the revenue from
future oil sales to be in euros, and is converting its Â£7bn
current account holdings because sterling represents "enemy
currency".

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